ADAPTING CHANNEL WIDTH FOR IMPROVING THE PERFORMANCE OF WIRELESS NETWORKS

• US 20090323600A1
• Filed: 06/27/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Bahl, Paramvir, Moscibroda, Thomas, Mahajan, Ratul, Chandra, Ranveer, Raghavendra, Ramya
• Granted Patent: US 8,699,424 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/18 Negotiating wireless communication parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/20 Negotiating bandwidth

Abstract

The subject invention relates to a system and/or methodology that provide improved wireless networking performance by dynamically adapting the channel width. A dynamic adaptation component adjust the channel width based on at least one characteristic of a wireless network, the characteristics can include but are not limited to range, power consumption, throughput, signal to noise ratio (SNR), resilience to delay spread, data rate, and capacity. Additionally, an optimization component can determine an optimum channel width.

Claims

1. A system facilitating wireless networking, comprising:

a wireless transmitter sending a signal via a channel having a specified width;

a sensing and analysis component that determines a value for at least one attribute of at least one of;

the wireless signal, or the wireless transmitter;

a control component that obtains at least one desired optimization objective; and

a dynamic adaptation component that adjusts the channel width of at least one of the wireless transmitter or a wireless receiver based at least in part on at least one of the attributes, or the desired objectives.

2. The system of claim 1, the attributes including at least one of:

energy consumption, data rate, loss rate, interference, link condition, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or signal strength.

3. The system of claim 1, the objectives include at least one of:

throughput, transmission range, capacity, and energy consumption.

4. The system of claim 1, the dynamic adaptation component further comprising an optimization component that determines an optimum channel width for a wireless transmitter based at least in part on at least one of the attributes, or objectives.

5. The system of claim 4, the optimum channel width is at least one of:

a channel width having the greatest throughput, a channel width having the most efficient energy consumption, a channel width with the least energy-per-byte, or a channel width with the longest transmission range

6. The system of claim 4, the optimization component further comprises a probing component that samples other channel widths to determine the optimum channel width.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein a channel having a first bandwidth hosting a plurality of flows is partitioned into a plurality of channels having a second bandwidth in order to increase capacity or decrease interference, and the second bandwidth for each flow being narrower than the first bandwidth.

8. The system of claim 1, the dynamic adaptation component further comprising an implementation component that facilitates adaptive channel width control in wireless transmitters initially having preset channel widths.

9. The system of claim 1, the control component obtains the desired characteristics from at least one of:

a policy, a user, an application, or a higher-layer protocol.

10. The system of claim 1, the dynamic adaptation component further comprising a binding component that maintains networking associations when the dynamic adaptation component adjusts the channel width of the wireless transmitter.

11. A method facilitating wireless networking, comprising:

transmitting a wireless signal via a channel having a specified width;

determining at least one value for at least one characteristic of at least one of;

the wireless signal, or the wireless signal transmitter;

obtaining at least one optimization objective; and

adjusting the channel width based at least in part on at least one of the characteristics, or objectives.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein at least one of:

the characteristics or the objectives include at least one of;

energy consumption, data rate, loss rate, interference, link condition, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), signal strength, throughput, transmission range, or capacity.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising determining an optimum channel width for a wireless transmitter based at least in part on at least one of the characteristics, or objectives, wherein the optimum channel width is at least one of:

a channel width having the greatest throughput, a channel width having the most efficient energy consumption, a channel width having the least energy per byte, or a channel width having the longest transmission range.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising sampling other channel widths to determine the optimum channel width.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising implementing adaptive channel width control using wireless transmitters intended to have preset channel widths by at least one of:

maintaining one or more rate tables that are loaded by the device driver of the wireless transmitter, modifying the slot time to be the same across all channel widths, or adjusting the computation for packet durations according to the different channel widths.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising splitting a first channel having a first bandwidth hosting multiple conversations into a plurality of channels having a bandwidth that is narrower than the first bandwidth, wherein there is one or more conversations per channel.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising maintaining networking associations when the dynamic adaptation component adjusts the channel width of the wireless transmitter.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the desired objectives are obtained from at least one of:

a policy, a user, an application, or a higher-layer protocol.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising selecting the narrowest available channel width when there is no data to transmit.

20. A system facilitating wireless networking, comprising:

means for transmitting a wireless signal via a channel having a specified width;

means for determining at least one characteristic of at least one of;

the wireless signal, or the wireless signal transmitter, wherein the characteristics include at least one of energy consumption, data rate, loss rate, interference, link condition, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or signal strength;

means for acquiring at least one network objective from at least one of a policy, a user, an application, or a higher-layer protocol, wherein the network objectives include at least one of throughput, transmission range, capacity, or power consumption; and

means for adjusting the channel width based at least in part on at least one of the characteristics, the network objectives, or an optimum channel width, wherein the optimum channel width is determined based at least in part on the characteristics, and is at least one of;

a channel width having the greatest throughput, or a channel width having the most efficient energy consumption.